Dusty, old paper

I love old books. Like, if I won the lottery, a large portion of my winnings would go towards buying old, antique books. I don’t necessarily have a particular subject that I love, though old cookbooks and homemaking books are hilarious. Really I love the special binding and the care that was put into making and keeping these books. I don’t feel like we really treat things with the same sort of respect. I guess when you can make books in minutes rather than days the value really changes.

I lived in West Chester, PA for a few years right before I moved here and there is an old bookstore there called Baldwin’s Book Barn – http://www.bookbarn.com. This is the first place I will go post-lottery. Along with having three floors of used books, there is a special room that is devoted to rare and REALLY expensive books. Most of them are behind glass, but oh – what a place! Most of the books are in volume form, so you get to have a big row of beautiful books.

Sure, compared to the books that we have been looking at more recently, these old books are tame. But there is nothing like the smell of old paper and the look of a row of carefully and lovingly bound rare books.